NEW YORK, NY June 11, 2009 —City officials defended their response to the recent H1N1 flu outbreak today in City Council hearings. They addressed complaints they hadn’t given out enough information about what was happening in schools – and about why a small number of people have died. Newly appointed Health Commissioner Dr. Thomas Farley said the city is protecting families’ privacy, and the public doesn’t need to know what, if any, underlying conditions are related to swine flu deaths. Queens Councilman Peter Vallone disagreed.

VALLONE: I’m a former prosecutor. This smells like a cover-up to me. We’re going to continue to try to get to the bottom of this. We need information on which to base our oversight, here in the City Council, and the public needs this information in order to take action.

Health officials said they gave the public figures on the hundreds of people who became ill enough to be admitted to the hospital … about how many people had asthma, diabetes and other complicating factors. Those numbers, however, were only released last week, after the outbreak had largely subsided.